*I’ve genuinely thought long and hard about your question and I have to say that anytime I might believe something that cannot be justified by reason or evidence, I’d at least try and find some or let go of the belief.*

Well this seems to me to be mistaken,

1.If you have evidence for a belief, then that would usually consist of something else you believe to be the case. In which case you must have evidence for this, which would be something else and so on, ultimately you will have to believe some things without evidence otherwise you’ll have to give up everything.

2. Consider the claim “one should not believe anything unless there is evidence for it” should I believe this? Well if its true I should not because so far you have not provided any evidence for it and hence it should be rejected.

See for example my http://mandmandmandm.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-believing-without-proof-some.html for some articulations of the other problems with this sort of stance.

Putting aside you definition of Christianity for the moment, humour me with an answer to the following:

Is there something wrong with holding to the occaisional belief that is not justified by reason or evidence? Are you claiming you hold to no beliefs whatsoever that cannot be justified by reason or evidence?

I see on your blog though:
“Matt holds a PhD from the University of Otago and specialises in Philosophical Theology and Applied Ethics.”

So I won’t waste time by laying down the standard atheist 101 arguments. I’ve read in depth debates with theologians and such arguments are generally brushed aside by arguing semantics and ‘god is not x god is y’ and suchlike. I’m sure someone who has studied to be (or is married to) a philosophical theologian has become extremely adept at rationalising their position.

So I stand by Christianity being “A belief in something not justified by reason or evidence.” on face value. Though I’m sure a philosophical theologian would be quite capable of putting forward a different view.

Do you have an argument to go with that assertion?

You people are university students, that should mean you have the faculties to engage Linz’s argument, to research facts and offer counter-facutals but instead you throw in insults about Linz’s age, hair line and weight!

That said, I do think that Linz wrote this article deliberatly seeking a raise. The tone and the angle he came from is my basis for thinking that along with his use of ad hominems and the uneccessary inflamatory remarks he knows full well are insulting to Muslims but Linz knew what he was doing and he is more than up for getting a raise. Getting a raise is often a good way of stirring things up so that the real issues can be brought out, discussed, dissected and debated and on this topic there are real issues that need to be aired and not swept away in the name of PC-ness.

If Christians were blowing civilians up, committing acts of terrorism, trying to convert people by force and generally affronting morality in a serious way in this current day and age in large numbers and were loudly using the Bible to justify their actions I would be speaking out and so would my entire church. I have a public track record of doing just that and so does my church.

It could be that they are loudly doing this and that the media is not giving them a voice but I doubt it. When I spoke publicly about my former Christian friend who committed unspeakable atrocities on children and tried to defend himself from the Bible the media fell all over themselves to give me a voice, to explain how wrong his claims were that the Bible gave him any justification.

But this is by the by. I think the real issue here is what does Islam teach? Clearly there are some tenets of Islam that are supportive of violence, conversion by force and the subjugation of women. A simple analysis and comparison of Christianised countries v Islamised countries shows up the differences in the guiding principles. Where the Christian church got these things wrong the followers of the church overthrew them – you don’t see churches today as a whole committing or endorsing suicide attacks, converting people by force and making the status of women unequal – feminism grew out of the church. By contrast you do not see muslims challenging their leaders and demanding an end to suicide attacks, you do not see them demanding an end to conversion by force or giving women equal rights.

So Lance I would appreciate it if you and others would not dump Christianity in with Islam.

Before nit picking what I wrote please keep in mind that there are individual ‘evil’ splinter groups/examples in every corner of society including, atheism and libertarianism, and every group has had moments when their forward growth has not been as strong as it could have been. What I wrote was in generalised terms so a response citing the inquisition will not rebut it.

Fair point, and there are people out there that feel that because of the actions of Islamic terrorists, they have the right to physically attack any Muslim and/or their property in retribution. And THAT is a load of stinking horseshit, it’s a crime, lock those pricks up, punish them, what they’re doing is goddamn wrong! However, the question of the appropriateness of Perigo having a column in Salient aside, I see little that is wrong with the Death to Islamofascism articles. Offending people is not and should never be a crime (to be clear I’m not saying you said it should, I’m referring back to what I wrote above), it isn’t racist to verbally attack a religion or its adherents.
There seems to be an unwillingness here to separate race from religion though, an attack on Islam is apparently an attack on Arabs, Lindsay Perigo is white, Arabs are brown, therefore LP is a racist/fascist/Nazi.

“I’d like him, for example, to focus his arguments on a critique of Christianity.”
Yeah sure, why not, Christianity are just as stupid and superstitious as Islam. So why the negative reaction when it’s about Islam and Muslims? It’s just a religion, as flippin stupid as the rest of them.